Parent Beliefs and Student Absences: Large Absence-Reduction Field Experiment

Autor/inn/en	Rogers, Todd; Feller, Avi
Institution	Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE)
Titel	Parent Beliefs and Student Absences: Large Absence-Reduction Field Experiment
Quelle	(2016), (8 Seiten) PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Monographie
Schlagwörter	Parent Attitudes; Attendance; Dropout Rate; Parent School Relationship; Educational Strategies; Intervention; Metropolitan Areas; School Districts; Elementary School Students; Middle School Students; High School Students; Student Records; Enrollment; Cost Effectiveness; Social Work; Truancy; Telephone Surveys; Regression (Statistics); Control Groups; Experimental Groups; Letters (Correspondence); Least Squares Statistics + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Elternverhalten; Anwesenheit; Parent-school relationship; Parent school relationships; Parent-school relationships; Parent-school relation; Parent school relation; Eltern-Schule-Beziehung; Lehrstrategie; Ballungsraum; School district; Schulbezirk; Middle school; Middle schools; Student; Students; Mittelschule; Mittelstufenschule; Schüler; Schülerin; High school; High schools; Oberschule; Studentin; Schülerakte; Einschulung; Kosten-Nutzen-Analyse; Kosten-Nutzen-Denken; Soziale Arbeit; Schulabsentismus; Schulschwänzen; Schulverweigerung; Telephone interview; Telefoninterview; Regression; Regressionsanalyse; Brief
Abstract	School attendance is a robust predictor of course performance, and it is consistently the strongest predictor of high school dropout, even more so than suspensions and test scores. Focusing on getting students to school is an essential part of decreasing high school dropout rates. What is concerning is that up to 20% of students miss essentially a month or more of schooling in a year. Recent work suggests that guardians are unaware of how their student's attendance compares to that of their classmates; moreover, they often are very miscalibrated in estimating how many days of school their own student has been absent. The objective of the project presented in this study is to motivate parents/guardians to improve student attendance through multiple communications during the school year. The project addresses the following research questions: (1) Does contacting guardians and encouraging them to improve their students' attendance reduce absences?; (2) Does communicating to guardians the total number of days their student missed reduce absences?; (3) Does communicating to guardians the total number of days their student missed as compared to the absences of a typical student reduce absences?; and (4) Do these interventions also impact the attendance of other students in the household not explicitly mentioned in the mailings? The study involves students and their guardians in all public elementary, middle, and high schools in a major metropolitan school district. This study incorporated various data sets exported directly from the administrative records of the school district. The data sets included student demographics and enrollment data, guardian contact information, and attendance data. This study identifies an easy-to-implement, extremely cost-effective way to reduce absenteeism. This intervention cost around $6 per incremental day of attendance it generated. Back-of-the-envelope estimates of the cost per incremental day of attendance from social workers and truancy officers is around $50-$100. Two tables are appended. [SREE documents are structured abstracts of SREE conference symposium, panel, and paper or poster submissions.] (ERIC).
Anmerkungen	Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness. 2040 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208. Tel: 202-495-0920; Fax: 202-640-4401; e-mail: inquiries@sree.org; Web site: http://www.sree.org
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01